


Where Are You Going, Boy?

by MYSTERYstew



Series: The Anomaly AU [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Five is amazed at the color green, Five is thirteen, Gen, The Handler collects Five six months after he jumps to the Apocalypse, understandably so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26593885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYSTERYstew/pseuds/MYSTERYstew
Summary: Five takes the deal and the next thing he knows there’s blue surrounding him.Or, The Handler collects what's hers.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Series: The Anomaly AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934554
Comments: 38
Kudos: 164





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a small thing that I kind of want to write more to. I'm posting this little tidbit cause I think it'll give motivate me to hammer out my ideas.  
> Got the title idea from Goliath by Woodkid

Five takes the deal and the next thing he knows there’s blue surrounding him. He panics at first, before the familiarity washes over him. _Time_ and _space_ greet him like an old friend, strands rubbing against him and begging him to reach out and _pull_.

The blue disappears and they’re back on solid ground. Five stumbles back, his hand falling from the handshake.

The scene is idyllic and for one heart stopping moment Five fears that it’s all a hallucination. It wouldn’t be the first he’s suffered from, food and water are so difficult to find and sometimes he just _slips_. But no, it’s real. The ground beneath him is soft, covered in manicured green grass that gives under his boots. A breeze brushes against him, gently tugging at his clothes and moving on to stir leaves up into a ruckus.

He’s hit with the desperate need to taste the air. He reaches up and yanks his scarf down, sucking in a deep breath and waiting for his lungs to spasm like they usually do. His chest aches, a byproduct of living in such a toxic environment, but the air filters through. No cloying heat or specks of ash, just pure, cool air the likes of which he hasn’t breathed in six months.

It’s _real_.

All of it.

There’s green stretched out in front of him, trees, grass, bushes, and moss of all things. He is so used to the brown and orange world of the apocalypse that he forgot just how vibrant and lively _green_ is. He drops to his knees, though it’s more like his legs buckle, and he rips his dirty gloves off so he can _feel_.

The blades of grass part beneath his fingers, wrapping around them and tickling against his palms. They’re cool, warming up a little beneath his body heat, and they’re…itchy, a barely-there sensation. Not that he cares. Not with a blue sky above him and no looming threats of acid rain. He could sit with his hands buried in the plant life forever.

He’s broken from his reverie by a voice outside his head. He startles, eyes flying open from where they’d closed, head turning to the woman that brought him here. “Magnificent isn’t it,” she says. Five feels his cheeks heat up in embarrassment at being caught in a moment of weakness. “The Commission employs the best of the best in all of its departments, including landscaping.” She smiles down at him archly, “I think you’ll fit in perfectly.” Under her gaze he feels scrutinized, not unlike how his father used to look at him, though hers is less cold and filled with more…playfulness.

He breaks their eye contact and stares at the grass between his fingers.

The Handler came to him six months after his mistake. She offered him a way out, standing next to his family’s graves and offering her hand.

 _Time corrections_ , she said, not at all intimidated by the rifle he had leveled at her. Keeping the timeline on track by removing pesky anomalies. A fancy euphemism for assassination.

Part of him had recoiled at the very idea, he was no killer, he was raised to save lives. But…his eyes had drifted to the collapsed buildings to the ash storm on the horizon and finally to the four shallow graves he’d carved out for his family (only four, two of them missing, one gone long before he arrived and the other lost somewhere in the rubble of the city). In the end it wasn’t that hard to take her hand, not when he told himself that he could use the opportunity as a way home, to save his family and the world ( _to escape a miserable life and guaranteed insanity_ —).

It’s complimentary and unnerving to hear the Handler tell him she thinks he’ll fit in with assassins.

Five plucks a single blade of grass, rubbing it between his fingers rhythmically. He wants to know—

“Why?” he manages to rasp, voice weak from disuse and harsh conditions.

“Because those little survivor skills of yours have made quite the impression,” she says stepping closer to his spot on the ground and crouching down. Five draws his eyes to her, surprised at how close she is. A living, breathing person, so close he can taste her heavy perfume on his tongue.

She leans in further, like she’s sharing a secret and whispers, “Because you have _potential_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel so suspicious when I post stuff, like I'm done but I'm always thinking, am I really tho?  
> I'm posting this anyway, I think I hammered it out to a point where I'm fairly satisfied
> 
> This is just kind of set up and me exploring because I don't really write the Handler and I'm trying to feel that out

The halls of the Commission are jam packed for the day. It feels like on this particular day the timeline is fighting to diverge as hard as it can, all the way back to 10,000 B.C.

Not that Dot dealt with anomalies that far back, her focus was solely on the 2019 apocalypse and matters associated with it. It was only six months ago that she had reported an anomaly to management. She had waited for it to be taken care of, usually she would be part of the planning process, offering up solutions to the problem, but this time it seemed management wanted to handle it personally. Well Dot had waited, and it was only now that the issue seemed to have been resolved. Right on time for her break.

“Excuse me,” she called, smiling politely as she hurried past slow walking coworkers. She spotted the one she was looking for, just visible through the passing crowd. “Herb! Herb!”

The short man faltered in his step, spinning to see who was calling him. Once he spotted her trying to catch up to him, he stepped to the side of the hallway and let the steady stream of people pass. “Dot, how are you?” he asks, smiling a little awkwardly.

“Herb,” she starts, pulling him further aside to quietly say, “he’s gone.”

Herb’s brow furrowed and his hand came up to adjust his glasses. “Who?”

“The apocalypse anomaly,” she reminds him, watching as his confusion clears.

“Do you think they…?” he trails off, dragging a thumb across his throat.

“I’m not sure. Management’s been very tight lipped about the whole thing, I don’t know why they would wait so long to resolve the issue.” It had been curious. The sudden appearance of the anomaly and then the delayed response from the Commission, a very atypical thing as they always were eager to take care of any divergence quickly and efficiently to preserve the timeline. Perhaps the delay had to do with the lack of life on Earth, there wouldn’t be much butterfly effect when everyone was dead.

“How’s your mutiny coming along?” she asks, drawing them away from the topic.

Herb grimaces, “Well, it’s been difficult figuring out how to galvanize the crew.”

Dot opens her mouth to tell him he’ll figure it out, he always does even if he takes longer on the job, but someone bumps into her as they hurry past and into the door on her left. They’re not the only one scrambling to look busy or hurrying to get out of the hall. It’s then that Dot registers the sound of heels echoing off the marble floors.

It’s a distinct sound that everyone in the Commission recognizes, which should be surprising since many women wear heels in the organization, and yet this set of heels is always recognizable as belonging to one person. It’s understandable that when the boss comes the employees would want to look efficient.

Beside Dot, Herb looks panicked. While Dot has never had a bad run in with the Handler, she’s seen the woman single out Herb on multiple occasions.

It’s then that the woman comes into view, eye-catching in how she stands out from the crowd. She’s got a black dress on that day, with the always present red heels and lipstick to match. She has a little hat with a veil pulled up on her head, allowing her dark and smoky eyes to be seen sweeping over the hall. Her lips are twisted up just so, seeming amused by how her presence unsettles those around her. Those in the hall clear a path for her, Dot remains where she is, smiling politely while Herb fidgets next to her.

The Handler draws so much attention that Dot nearly misses the person following in her shadow, the tread of his boots silent against the floor. The smile slides off Dot’s face as she recognizes the boy, the very one she had just told Herb about. He’s small and dressed for a far harsher environment than the halls of the Commission warrant (he’s dressed for the end of the world, her mind supplies). There’s grime all over him, dirt and ash alike stain him, no part of him is untouched by it.

Dot swallows, her throat suddenly dry. He looks so young.

The Handler catches Dot’s eye, face lighting up as she angles towards Dot and Herb. Dot wishes she’d ducked out now, that she had done what many of her coworkers before had and retreated to a supply closet. Herb is stiff as a board next to her, radiating nervousness as the Handler stops in front of them with a sharp smile.

“Dot, Herb! So nice to run into you two.” She says. Dot’s eyes are drawn to the boy once more, half hidden behind the Handler with his eyes (they’re blue, she never noticed that) darting away every few seconds as some noise draws his attention. Dot imagines it’s overwhelming to go from being the only living person in a silent and dead world to suddenly being surrounded by so many people. The Handler chuckles and Dot realizes she’s been caught staring. “Ah, I see you recognize Mr. Five here,” the woman says stepping aside slightly to bring Number Five closer to her. “Five, meet Dot. She’s the one who first flagged your appearance in 2019.”

The boy’s gaze locks on her and Dot feels frozen in place. He’s a scrawny little thing, suffering from a lack of food and water, his face is hard to read but his eyes are piercing, and she feels like she’s being silently evaluated. Dot tries for a smile, knows it’s strained immediately, and sticks her hand out. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Five,” she greets.

The boy stares at her offered hand with an apathetic look and Dot is forced to slowly retract her hand as the moment drags on.

The Handler looks amused by the exchange and then her eyes are fixing on Herb and the amusement is gone. “Herb, where are you with the Potemkin mutiny?”

Herb stutters through his case and Dot stands next to him quietly. Her eyes drift to Number Five every now and again as she bites her lip and waits for the Handler to finish playing with Herb. The way the boy’s eyes dart around is frenetic, like he’s trying to take in as much information as he can and finding it to be too much.

After a long and uncomfortable five minutes the Handler brushes her hands against her skirt, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles, and turns to the boy. “Come along, Five,” she urges, placing a possessive hand on his small shoulder. “I expect that mutiny to be hammered out by tomorrow, Herb.”

Dot tracks them as they walk down the hall, the Handler guiding Number Five towards her office.

Herb let’s out a loud breath. “That was…interesting.”

“Yeah,” Dot agrees absently, still reeling from meeting Number Five.

________

Being around people again is…overwhelming.

Five found himself looking at each person as they passed with wide eyes, hardly believing them to be real.

Even at this moment, sat in the Handler’s office, he finds himself running his fingers over the seat cushion, reassuring himself of the reality around him. Even with the feel of leather beneath the pads of his fingers it’s hard to believe. There are shelves filled with wholly intact books behind the Handler, a rarity in the apocalypse (he’d been so grateful to find Vanya’s book unblemished).

Although they are tucked away behind closed doors now, Five can still hear the flow of a work day beyond the wood, so different from the silence of a burned out city.

“Carla, be a dear and send for lunch,” the Handler requests through an intercom on her desk. There’s a crackled “yes, ma’am” from the secretary outside the door and then the Handler focuses her full attention on Five. “You’re awfully quiet, Five.”

He’s not sure what to say to that.

Her lips quirk up in a forgiving smile. “Surely you must have questions,” she encourages.

Five licks his lips. He wants to demand why the Commission won’t stop the apocalypse again and again until she gives him a real answer or concedes that really, the entire destruction of humanity is a bad thing. _Not the end of everything, just…something_. He holds his tongue and buries the question deep to be investigated later. “Dot flagged me?” he asks, voice cracking. He grimaces at the sound.

“Yes, we monitor all of space-time, as I told you. We of course knew about you, but then something very surprising happened in 2002,” she leans back in her chair, fingers extending in a poof motion. “You disappeared off the face of the Earth. Not a trace of you to be found, except for a few reports of a boy appearing and disappearing in a flash of blue, no more than a few seconds each time. Now we were all rather confused by that, so you can imagine our surprise when you turned up in 2019.” Her face turns contrite, “Extracting you unfortunately took longer than expected, but you’re here now.”

Five looks away, eyes roving over the trinkets around the office. It’s unpleasant to hear about his disappearance, something he doesn’t like to linger on. He wonders why it took the Commission so long to come get him, if they knew he was stranded from the beginning.

Some of his thoughts must show on his face because the Handler sighs. “The Commission is a large organization, Five. There’s bureaucracy between departments. I had to argue hard for our Board of Directors to grant me permission to save you.”

Five would argue with the term saving. Saving someone didn’t normally come with conditions, at least not as far as he’s seen.

She falls quiet, eyes assessing him, and Five feels like she’s waiting for something from him. He shifts in his seat, remembering those few missions he went on with his siblings and how the civilians used to grab their hands and cling and _thank you, thank you, thank you—_

Five isn’t going to cling to the Handler and espouse overly emotional words of gratitude. He is grateful, it’s impossible not to be, but the woman is…fake. A kind voice and praise slapped over something darker. He can tell she’s someone to be careful with, the way all the workers reacted to her gave him that little tidbit, the question is whether she’s just a cutthroat boss or a psychopath.

He meets her expectant look and manages a quiet, “Thank you.” It’s barely audible, and his throat hurts, has been hurting for a long time. But in that moment he’s grateful for the way it makes him sound, sincere and young.

She smiles satisfied, leaning back in her chair. “I admit I had to sell them on how much of an asset you would be.” Her smile peters out, face suddenly serious. “I staked my reputation on you, Five. A worthy investment I’m sure.”

Five nods his head. Now is not the time to hesitate and give her reasons to doubt him.

There’s a knock on the door that jolts Five in his chair, thankfully the Handler’s heavy stare is taken off of him with the arrival of her secretary.

The woman pushes through the door with a small cart, poofy, bobbed hair bouncing slightly with her steps. The smell of food hits Five and his stomach clenches hard enough to hurt. He hasn’t smelled anything like it in months. Soup and bread are set in front of him by the woman and then she takes her leave.

The soup has chunks of fresh vegetables and noodles floating in it and when he snatches a roll of bread it’s still warm from the oven. He tears it to pieces and eagerly stuffs them in his mouth, chewing the fluffy morsels and swallowing quickly. It’s so much better than cockroaches and uncooked cans of beans. He snatches up the soup, drinking straight from the bowl and not bothering with a spoon. A few drops of broth drip down his chin.

“Now, now,” The Handler chuckles. Five freezes, bringing the bowl back down. He’d forgotten she was there, so focused on eating actual food that everything else had faded away. Five watches warily as she steps around the desk, pulling out a handkerchief and leaning over to wipe his chin for him. He does his best to lean away but the fabric chases him, pressing firmly against his face to scrub the broth off. The Handler removes her hand, studying his face. “That’s better. We wouldn’t want you dirtied up, now would we?”

Five is very conscious of his dirty clothes, he’s definitely leaving ash marks behind on the seat, yet he shakes his head minutely in agreement. He’s happy that the grime will at least hide the embarrassed flush on his cheeks.

“Pace yourself, Number Five,” the Handler says, pulling away to reseat herself. “The food’s not going anywhere.”

Five grabs his untouched spoon and dips it into his soup, eyes trained on the Handler. She watches him right back as she eats her own food, the edges of her lips twitching up with each mouthful of soup. For the first time since they got into the office she’s quiet. It reminds Five of mealtimes back home, making eye contact with his siblings to the soundtrack of cutlery on plates and Herr Carlson’s droning voice. There is no Herr Carlson here. Just a strange woman with dark eyes and a knowing smile.

Five looks away first and focuses on not letting any more broth drip where it shouldn’t.

_________

The Handler leads him deeper into the building. They descend down and down and down and Five wishes they could’ve stayed up where there are windows to the outside. They’re in a basement level and it’s clean yet it still reminds him uncomfortably of some of the shelters he’d lived in. There’s hardly any foot traffic in this area, the human presence being no more than a few wayward people in suits. It is as much a relief to be away from the noise as it is hauntingly familiar.

The Handler finally stops at a room with _Mr. Five_ written across the metal. She catches his gaze, a slow smile forming on her lips. “Very professional, no?”

Five nods his head and wonders how long they’ve been planning for him if they already have his name on a door.

“This will be your quarters,” the Handler says opening the door and stepping inside. Five follows, eyes darting to the corners cautiously. It’s sparse. There’s a bed, a chair, and a trunk furnishing it with another doorway that must lead to a bathroom. No windows, just cement walls.

The Handler points at the trunk. “Open it.”

Five stands still, unsure for a moment, before he moves towards it. The Handler stands in his peripheral, watching him intently. He half expects a bomb to go off when he lifts the lid.

It’s not a bomb.

Inside there are uniforms. Five stares at them, hit with a sudden nostalgia. His uniform was destroyed a few weeks after he got stranded, it became unsalvageable after a hard fall down some rubble, tearing in too many places for him to save. He had reluctantly swapped it out for hardier clothing, sad to admit that the new clothes worked better at protecting him from the elements.

The uniforms in the trunk are similar to the academy ones that he used to wear, though they come in a variety of colors instead of being the exact same outfit. There’s dark blue, slate grey, and black fabric. And all of them with vibrant red accents that catch the eye. Five finds his eyes drifting towards the Handler’s heels, silently noting how the shades seem to match. He runs his fingers along the collar of a blazer in thought. His father had branded him and his siblings with tattoos, perhaps this is the Handler’s version of the same thing, a visual of the claim she’s staked on him.

The idea makes him uneasy, but given the choice, he’d rather wear her color than get tattooed again.

She steps closer, her shadow blocking out the room’s light. He shrinks down further when he feels her hand brush through his hair, a barely-there touch that disappears as if it had been his imagination. The Handler’s voice is low when she speaks, the near constant joviality gone. “Clothes make the man, Five.”

Five stares into the trunk, eyes locked on the red lines running along the fabric in a sign of ownership. The silence between them stretches until he finally feels that he can meet her gaze without wavering.

“Welcome to the Commission.”

________

Slowly Five strips out of his gear. Ash flakes off of it, dirtying the bathroom floor. When he gets into the tiny shower stall and twists the nozzle, he’s mostly expecting nothing to come out (he’d found intact sinks and baths before only to discover their pipes were broken). He gets a face full of cold water that sends him sputtering into the wall. When his heart slows again, he cautiously moves beneath the spray once more, the cold water giving him goosebumps. There’s soap and Five spends a long time scrubbing at the grime that’s caked into his skin. He scrubs, hands running over his prominent ribs and bones, the skin over them feeling paper thin. He has a ridiculous notion that if he presses too hard the bone will pierce right through. He knows it’s irrational. He takes care to be gentle nonetheless.

The water runs a satisfying brown, gradually clearing as he continues to work. Even so, he can still see dirt stained into the creases of his hands. It’s the cleanest he’s been since the day he got stranded.

Reluctantly he turns the water off, watching it slide into the drain with a twisted gut. There were so many times when he couldn’t find water and he’d worried that would be it for him. But here there’s water in abundance. Enough water to drink and wash and water the lawn without fear of it running out.

He steps out and changes into the fresh clothes quickly. They are a little loose on his malnourished body but that will hopefully change.

In the privacy of the bathroom he digs through his old clothes with searching hands. His fingers brush against worn paper and he pulls the book out of the inner pocket. Vanya’s young face looks up at him, dark eyes peeking out from under her bangs. A wave of longing washes over him. A longing to be home, for the past six months to have been a feverish nightmare that he wakes up from in the morning. It’s foolish, but he wishes for it all the same

He pulls the prosthetic eye out with his other hand and reads the numbers on the back just like he always does. It’s become a ritual. Even so he hardly needs the physical eye when the numbers are seared into his brain.

The Commission is his first step in getting back and saving his family. Nothing more than a stepping-stone on the path to seeing them again.


	3. Chapter 3

Five doesn’t sleep, not really. He lays awake on his small bed, eyes drifting around the room, continually reminding himself of where he is. The bed is soft, so much softer than anything he’s slept on in the past months, yet he knows that it’s a shitty mattress that has odd lumps in it, his bed at the Academy was more comfortable. It’s better than anything he’s slept on recently though and he always imagined going home and collapsing into bed to sleep for a week.

He shifts, the fabric of his sheets rustling loudly in the room.

The shitty mattress is too comfortable.

Five huffs a laugh into the room, rolling onto his side. The air doesn’t smell like fire, he feels clean, and there’s no sound of rubble settling or the soft murmurs of Delores. He should feel relieved but all he can feel is disconcerted by the absence of each of those things.

He misses the apocalypse like its home. A terrible home, but one that is familiar. The Commission is a big unknown, filled with people and all the comforts of a living world.

Five rubs a fist against his forehead hard, as if that will wipe away the thoughts and let him drift into a dreamless sleep. He squeezes his eyes shut and packs his thoughts away in little boxes. They sit, ready to topple and spill out once more. A slow breath in and out and then repeat, Five counts putting all his focus into it.

Slowly he sinks into the mattress, not quite asleep and not quite awake, stuck in limbo.

________

The Handler picked him up in the morning done up in an off the shoulder green dress that’s skirt flares. It looked excessive, especially against the concrete walls of the lower level they were in.

Five’s eyes had burned from his restless sleep and his clothes hung off him like a scarecrow. But the Handler looked him up and down with a smile and said, “Looking sharp, Five.”

Now he sits in an examination room swinging his feet restlessly as he waits alone. There’s a window at least, spilling sunshine into the room and lazy white clouds drifting across a blue canvas. He watches transfixed until the exam room door swings open and the Handler enters followed by a small graying man with black rimmed glasses.

“Dr. Glasser this is Number Five,” the Handler introduces.

The man looks over the rim of his glasses, face set in stone. “Scrawny little thing isn’t he. I doubt he could snap my neck at present.”

Five glowers at the man as the Handler chuckles. “Five is a new arrival doctor, given time I’m sure you’ll have plenty to worry about. For now, he’s in need of a check-up.”

“I’ll say,” the man mutters turning to the cabinets of the room.

Five curls his fingers around the edge of the exam table and clenches his jaw in annoyance. He keeps still, turning his head back to the window and ignoring the doctor as he checks Five’s vitals (he jolts a little at the feeling of being touched, forcing himself still under the Handler’s watchful eyes).

The man hums, grabbing a clipboard to write something down. “Any chest pain? Trouble breathing?”

“It’s better,” Five answers shortly. And it is, his chest still hurts on the deep breaths, but he can tell it’s improved (at least he can take deep breaths now). His voice is still raspy, but it also feels stronger.

The man goes back to the clipboard and the Handler remains in her spot across the room. Five looks back at the window.

A sudden poke to his ribs startles him, the touch setting his nerves on edge and he doesn’t think before grabbing the hand pressed against him, twisting it away and snapping his other hand forward with a crack. The doctor stumbles back with a curse and Five scrambles further onto the table, heart racing as he realizes he’s not being attacked and he just punched the doctor. His eyes flick to the Handler as she throws her head back and laughs.

“It appears we were both wrong about him,” she says, sounding pleased rather than angry. Five blinks in surprise and she catches his eye, winking at him. “You should be more careful with who you poke, Dr. Glasser.”

The doctor swipes his fallen glasses off the floor, rubbing his bloody nose. “It would appear so. My apologies Number Five.”

Five stays in his spot on the table, hyper vigilant. He manages a stiff nod towards the man in acknowledgement.

“You can leave now Dr. Glasser. Send your notes to my secretary once you’re out,” the Handler orders.

Dr. Glasser looks at her sharply, hand clutched to his nose once more. “That’s not—”

“Thank you,” the Handler interrupts, voice light and pleasant with an edge to it.

The doctor’s eyes widen and he quickly nods his head. “O-of course. I’ll get out of your way,” he mumbles ducking out the door.

Five licks his lips, nervous. Perhaps the Handler hadn’t been pleased and simply wanted to get him alone for punishment.

She steps up to the exam table and Five shifts further back. The woman tuts at him, “No need for the startled look, I’m not angry at you.”

That makes Five freeze, his eyes searching her face for a lie. The Handler smiles, hand reaching out and brushing a few strands of hair from his forehead. Five doesn’t react, body on edge and tensed like a bowstring, ready to jump into action if necessary but resisting the instinct.

Hitting the Handler would be disastrous.

She pulls away, moving over to the cabinets and rummaging around. “You have quick reflexes, an admirable trait.”

Five takes a breath, untensing himself and letting his legs drop off the table to hang much like how he was originally sitting. The Handler comes back, her heels tapping against the tiles, and presents a contraption that looks like a gun, it even has a trigger.

“Now, there’s one last thing to take care of,” she starts. “This is standard practice in the Commission. This is an injector,” she traces her fingers over the metal. “We use it to inject a small tracker into our employees.”

“Why?” Five asks uneasily.

“The timeline is a big place and sometimes our agents need extraction. This makes that easier.”

Five stares at the metal. He’s already been collared by the Handler and now she wants to put him on a leash.

“So, what do you say, Five?” she asks.

Five blinks, eyes leaving the injector to look up and meet the Handler’s gaze. She stares at him expectantly, lips quirked up and making no move towards him.

This is a test he realizes. She wants him to choose it willingly.

“I already said yes,” he answers.

The Handler gives an airy chuckle. “I haven’t forgotten. Though I have to admit your circumstances were rather desperate. You would not be the first recruit we’ve rescued from destitution who later found themselves having…doubts, about the Commission’s duties.”

Five tilts his head. “What happens to those recruits?”

“We let them go,” the Handler says.

“I don’t believe you,” Five blurts without thinking, wincing as the words leave his mouth.

If anything, the Handler smiles wider, bridging the gap between them, the skirt of her dress brushing against Five’s knees. “A healthy dose of suspicion never hurt anyone,” she says, “Though in this case it’s misplaced, I’m not lying to you. Anyone who feels they are not up to the Commission’s standards are allowed to return to the time from which they came.”

Five swallows. To back out now would mean returning to the apocalypse. Back to starvation and breathing in toxic air. Back to standing over his sibling’s graves wondering why he abandoned them to death—

The Handler leans back, giving Five room. Her voice is low and syrupy in his ears. “Do you have doubts, Five?”

Five looks down, his fingers tremble minutely as they snag on the edge of his sleeve, rolling it up so he can bare his arm. “No,” he answers shortly, squashing his hesitance and offering her his arm.

The Handler’s fingers curl around his wrist, hot as a brand.

________

They sit in the Handler’s office eating breakfast. Five’s arm stings from the tracker injection. He can’t tell if it’s his imagination getting away from him or if he really can feel the small scrap of metal sliding around under his skin. He uses his left arm to hold his food, slowly biting through a piece of toast.

As he takes the last bite the Handler opens a drawer in her desk, pulling out two books. She waits for him to finish chewing and remains silent even when he does, forcing him to speak. “What are those?”

“This,” she indicates the thicker book. “is the Commission’s handbook. And this one is for your orientation.” She stands up to hand them off to him.

Five quickly wipes stray crumbs from his hands and accepts them.

“Study them, they’ll help you navigate your new life.”

They sit heavy in his lap.

________

Living under Reginald Hargreeves’ roof had been full of strict rules and regulations. Breaking any of them resulted in the punishment of the guilty party. Five knew this and so did his siblings.

But Five had always enjoyed pushing boundaries, spoken and unspoken lines in the sand that he liked to toe and see how far over he could step. Punishments were aplenty, but Reginald had sometimes allowed Five’s discourse where he wouldn’t have with any of the other children. Part of him says it was because of the respect he managed to wrest from his father. Another tells him it was to further divide him from his siblings, showing some favoritism towards Five to turn the others against him.

It doesn’t matter anymore, what matters is that Five likes to know the boundaries and how hard he can push back on them.

He waits until it’s night and his door has been locked ( _Only for the time being_ , the Handler assured).

Five hasn’t tried a spatial jump in months. A combination of the energy drain and a bad experience with a collapsing building ( _and a pervading fear of the what-ifs—_ ). Now is the opportune time to try again, now that he has food and a stable environment.

He presses himself against the door. He’s just going to jump to the other side from as short a distance as he can.

Five licks his lips, reaching for his powers after months of not touching them. They come to him easily, aching and wrapping around him entirely in greeting. He closes his eyes and pulls, stepping through the blue light and popping out in the dimly lit hallway outside his room.

A breath of air leaves him, shaky with relief.

After all that time and it still feels like a homecoming to step through space.

He allows himself a small smile, turning and walking down the hallway. He doesn’t have a destination in mind, he simply wants to toe the line and find out what happens now that he has a leash.

It doesn’t take him long until he reaches a set of double doors. Stood in front of them is the Handler, still immaculately dressed.

Her eyebrow rises. “You’re supposed to be in bed,” she chastises.

“I needed to walk,” he says easily. Words are slowly becoming familiar to him again, he finds himself responding with more ease.

The Handler steps next to him, arm going around his shoulders. He forces himself to relax under the weight of it. “Well, I see no problem with that. Though this wing is strictly for field agents.”

Five tilts his head in question. “Then shouldn’t I be allowed.”

“You will be, but not yet,” she says leading him away from the area but not taking him directly to his room. “It’s like introducing cats.”

Five frowns. His father had never allowed pets in the house, as a result his only experience with animals was through the occasional bit of tv he watched on Saturdays. “Cats?”

“They can be territorial around new additions. It’s best to slowly introduce them to each other,” she explains.

“I’m not a cat.”

“You’re right,” she hums, “age-wise you’d be a kitten.”

Five scowls at the label.

They walk around the halls, the Handler guiding him on some unknown path. There are less workers milling about and the ones that are look dead eyed from lack of sleep.

When they do reach his room, Five is starting to feel heavy eyed. The Handler pushes against his back and he shuffles inside.

“Goodnight, Five,” she calls, closing the door and clicking the lock.

Five changes and sinks down onto his comfortable, lumpy mattress with a sigh.

________

It becomes routine over the next two weeks.

Five sneaks out of his room, alternating which day and time he does, and the Handler always finds him.

Every day the Handler comes to get him from his room and takes him to have breakfast in her office, then lunch and dinner. He studies the books she gave him, skipping ahead to read about briefcases and the unexpected effects of time travel.

With the exception of nights when he’s asleep, all his time is spent around the Handler. After the fifth time he sneaks out it’s getting annoying having her as his minder at all times of the day.

________

Five ducks behind a corner as another group of office workers comes his way, huffing in annoyance at the interruption. It seems that every time he makes some headway there is a new obstacle to be avoided. The group passes, arms laden with folders and heads bent together to talk about their cases or gossip or the weather for all Five knows, it’s not like he cares about their conversations. He does care that they walk so slow.

There is a way that all of the hassle could be avoided of course. If Five just reached for his powers and pulled, he could be outside in seconds. He’s been using his powers to get out of his room when it’s locked, blinking just a few inches so he’s free and he expends only a little of his energy.

Part of him still recoils at the thought of using his powers. The illogical part that gnaws on the _what if_ ’s and that warns that he’ll use too much energy and then how will he get food or water—

It’s good practice, he reasons. He spent so long in a dead world where he didn’t need to keep track of people around him that now he finds himself overwhelmed when he gets into an area with more than three people. Sneaking around the Commission employees means he can watch without being seen, with the added benefit of finding all the blind spots to hide away in. That is, until the Handler inevitably catches up to him.

The period before she does though, lends itself to quick exploration. And presents strange gifts.

The pocket of Five’s blazer wiggles more insistently, the occupant struggling against the seams. Five ducks back into the hall and speed walks down it. His new shoes make the slightest squeak against the polished floors, the noise makes him long for the quiet tread of his old boots.

There’s only a few more turns until he reaches the main lobby of the building and his ultimate goal, the doors to the outside. The problem with the lobby, however, is the near constant stream of people coming and going through it. While this could also be to his advantage, blending with the crowd making it easier to get out, the Commission lackeys have an annoying habit of staring at him as soon as he’s noticed. Five isn’t sure how pin-point his tracker is but a room of people staring at him is just as good of a beacon for the Handler to find him.

A distraction is in order.

Five lingers in the shadow of the hallway, alone finally. He reaches into his right pocket, quickly grabbing the squirming rodent inside. It makes an angry squeaking noise at him, attempting to bite his fingers with its long teeth. Five has dealt with rats before though, and the ones in the apocalypse proved far more troublesome than the pampered rat he found in the low levels of the Commission. He crouches down and tosses it into the lobby, ensuring that it will run forward and not back into the hall.

The rat immediately runs, confused and suddenly surrounded by big predators on two legs, it scrambles over shoes with frightened fervor. A woman squeals as it touches her foot, drawing the whole lobby to a stop in surprise. Heads turn towards the woman and then to what made her exclaim in such a way. It takes them a moment to process the big brown rodent in their midst and then there’s pandemonium as some people scramble back from it in disgust while a few brave souls step forward to herd it.

With all their attention on the rat it’s easy for Five to skirt the room and make it to the doors without being noticed. Fresh air greets him and the loud noise of the crowd inside is cut off as the doors swing shut. Five allows himself a satisfied smile.

A hand snakes its way onto his shoulder, freezing him in place with a firm grip. An airy chuckle behind him tells Five exactly who it is grabbing him. “You’ve caused quite a stir,” the Handler says, moving to stand in front of him.

Five does his best to smother his annoyance with her and knows he’s not entirely successful by the way her lips curl up just a bit more. The woman seems to find his moods amusing more than anything and Five can’t help them when the woman always appears with a smile when he tries to go somewhere.

Five shrugs, both in answer and in the hope of getting her hand off him, he doesn’t want to risk making her mad by denying what he did, but he also doesn’t want to directly admit to it.

Her hand lingers a moment longer before moving away. She doesn’t look angry, not even in her eyes. “Using unusual resources as a distraction to achieve a goal. Very clever,” she praises.

Five shrugs again, voice stronger than those early days, the scratchiness is even fading. “A rat got into the lobby.”

“With a helping hand,” she adds.

“Must’ve slipped into someone’s pocket,” Five concedes.

The Handler smiles, “Well, we’ll let sanitation deal with that. Walk with me, Five.”

As annoyed as Five is at once again being stuck to the Handler’s side, at least he gets to be outside this time. He falls into step beside her as they walk down the Commission steps and head onto the dirt paths that wind through the organization’s grounds.

They walk in silence and Five lets himself drift, focusing on the foliage around them and not the woman next to him. He would have preferred walking alone, he’s been itching to explore outside and even just lay in the grass and watch the white clouds as they drift by, but with the Handler there he doesn’t dare do either. She always has an eye on him and he won’t be letting her see him collapse to the ground like he did when he first saw grass again, at his most vulnerable.

They come to a stop next to a great oak tree that looks down on the Commission building sprawled out before them.

“I’d say you’ve recovered your energy,” the Handler says.

“I feel better,” Five agrees. It’s amazing what food and indoor plumbing can do for a person. Five is still skinny, and he will be for months to come as he slowly gains weight back, but he feels almost normal again. It’s been a long time since he felt that way.

The Handler looks down at him, “Then I think it’s time we start your training.”

Five frowns, “Training?”

“All recruits to receive training before they enter the field. Even our older agents occasionally return to training to sharpen their skills,” she explains. “Your father gave you special training which will no doubt be a boon to you, however, the Commission’s assignments are geared in a different direction than what you’re used to.”

Five nods. He’s been waiting and wondering when they would reach this point. Another step closer to being in the field, _to killing—_

He shoves the thought into a box and buries it. “When can I start?” he asks.

The Handler looks pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to take a calculus exam today, RIP to me it was horrible  
> Here's some more Five and the Handler interactions, it took me a bit to get all the scenes I wanted onto paper  
> Hopefully this is coherent and consistent


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, after all that time!

Five runs.

His legs struggle to push him forward, still recovering from his months of starvation. His breaths come out in ragged puffs (he can hear Reginald’s harsh barking, _control your breathing, Number Five! How can you expect to keep up when you waste your air!_ ) but for the life of him he can’t manage it when the dirt next to him explodes, showering him in clumps. The adrenaline coursing through him keeps his feet moving despite his weakness.

Five scrambles over obstacles in his path, not daring to slow even as he nearly loses his footing climbing up a slope, until he has to drop to the ground and crawl through mud with bullets hitting the ground around him. His focus narrows, all he sees is the dark brown stretching in front of him and feels the cold mud seeping through his clothes and burrowing beneath his nails.

All at once the ringing of bullets stops, silence rushing into its place. Five freezes in confusion.

“Well done, Five!” The Handler calls.

Five scrambles to his feet once more, glancing back and realizing he’d crawled over the end of the obstacle course, had been so focused that he hadn’t noticed that he’d even passed it.

The Handler leaves her post, the barrel of her gun smoking from the strafing she’d done. She’s immaculate, kept clean from her spot away from the muddy course while Five’s once clean clothes are now smeared with it.

Five leans his hands on his knees, his chest heaving as he drags in air with fervor.

The Handler stops next to him smiling, her hand coming to rest on his back, “Your technique isn’t the best, but your persistence is truly a sight.”

Five shoots her a glare through his damp bangs, throat burning with each breath. He’d like to see her sprint through mud while being shot at.

“I can see you’re tired,” the Handler acknowledges, pushing him to walk. They leave the obstacle course behind thankfully, and Five starts to feel like he can breathe with only mild burning as they walk a slow pace. He feels like he could collapse and sleep the rest of the day, not even caring if he misses dinner.

His fuzzy daydreams of sleeping crash and burn as the Handler stops him in a new training area. “No more running for today,” she says like she’s granted him a great service. Her voice is pleasant but staring at the huge ass climbing wall in front of him, Five feels like there’s an underlying maliciousness to the whole scenario. “You can start in 3, 2,1…”

Five does not run so much as stumble on weak legs and grab the rope in shaking hands.

He’s not entirely sure how many times he fell off and back into the mud, he just knows that when he goes to shower that night the mud is _everywhere_.

________

Dinner has been set, not in the Handler’s office for once, but off in a secluded workroom where desks have been shoved against the back wall and the blackboards still have smeared chalk on them. Candles are lit and the table is covered in cloth.

The place settings have a wide range of silverware set out, some that even Five has not seen, though he remembers the way Reginald liked his table set.

Five walks to one of the chairs, hesitating to sit before deciding to just go for it, he no longer has to wait for Reginald’s approval. Whether or not he has the Handler’s remains to be seen, but the woman had left immediately after dropping him off, promising to return in a short amount of time.

The door opens again and the Handler struts inside followed by her secretary and a cart with two covered plates. “Thank you, Carla,” the Handler says dismissively and the secretary nods before heading out. The Handler focuses on him once more. “Typically, when you are a dinner guest you should wait for the host to arrive before sitting. I’ll let it slide this time though.”

“Why are we here?” Five asks. It’s a break from their routine.

“Training,” the Handler answers, lifting one of the covered plates and setting in in front of Five. “Part of being an assassin is knowing how to blend in and grift for the job. So tonight, we are not in the Commission.” She lifts the top off his plate, revealing a small portioned meal of pork and vegetables. Five’s stomach growls at the sight. His meals are still on the smaller side, because while his appetite is demanding he is still not used to eating so much. The Handler’s own serving size appears to be bigger when her meal is revealed.

“The year is 1778 and you are posing as a British soldier and dining with British officers during the American Revolutionary War,” she seats herself across from him. “Blend in.”

Five stares at her and she doesn’t move, not reaching for her utensils or napkin at all. This is an etiquette lesson and she won’t give him any hints on how to succeed.

Five grabs his napkin first, laying it in his lap. After a moment the Handler copies him so he can only assume he did it right. He eyes the utensils before selecting the knife and fork closest to the plate, used for the main dish he assumes. The Handler smiles, grabbing her own as well.

Five cuts into the meat on his plate, mouth watering in hunger as he lifts his fork.

There’s a click and then the deafening sound of a gun’s hammer dropping. Five flinches back in his seat eyes wide.

The Handler smiles an, old pistol in her hand pointed squarely at Five’s chest. “And that’s the end of your short career with the Commission.”

Five takes a deep breath, his uninjured chest rising and falling. His heart is beating a mile a minute, whole body on edge and demanding that he _move-run-fight—_

“What?” he manages, throat tight with the burst of fear and adrenaline in him.

The pistol is set aside and the Handler’s smile turns indulgent. “During the time period, it was common amongst the British to cut the meal as you did and then put the knife down and switch the fork to the right hand.” She demonstrates the process, taking a bite of food. “Doing what you did was common among colonists and would have aroused suspicion of spying.”

Five scowls at her, anger burning his cheeks. “How was I supposed to know that?”

“You do now,” she says with a raised brow.

Five seethes quietly.

She set him up to fail.

“None of that now,” the Handler chastises, unimpressed with his glare. “Do it right this time.”

Five snatches up his fork and knife once more, cutting into the pork vindictively, uncaring if he scratches the china. He switches hands and takes his first bite, the meat already lukewarm.

“Cut the attitude and you might just survive,” the Handler comments, dark amusement shining in her eyes.

The grifting lessons aren’t as frequent as the physical training and Five is grateful for that fact. Each demand for him to _blend in_ eventually gets a gun pointed at him for some small mistake.

For the first time he wishes he had Allison’s talent for acting.

_________

The training room is empty save for Five and the Handler. That seems to be the norm for all their training sessions, the Handler must be arranging private trainings just for him.

The Handler gestures to the middle of the room, walking towards a storage area. Five follows her direction, moving to the center, his shoes tapping a light beat on the wood floor. There’s a circle outlined in the middle, most likely providing a boundary for fights, and against the wall are training matts meant to cushion falls. Reginald had Five and his siblings training on those when they were just starting physical training before getting rid of them for the sake of realistic fighting. It had certainly provided motivation to avoid being thrown by one of his siblings, Luther most of all.

The Handler comes back and stops next to a bench leaning down to set some items out that Five can’t see.

“Have you ever used a knife, Five?” she asks with her back turned.

Diego was the knife nut, a given with his power over trajectories. Reginald didn’t train Five or the rest of his siblings with tools beyond the basics, only Diego got special instruction with knives, something he lorded over all of them endlessly.

“No,” Five answers.

“It doesn’t take much skill to be lethal with a blade,” the Handler says conversationally. “One lucky hit and you’re dead by a fool’s hand.”

Five remembers watching as Diego dismantled a practice dummy with sure strokes, graceful and confident without Reginald’s judging eyes on him. Five had kept himself hidden, unwilling to let his brother see his fascination. Diego was awkward and alternatively loud or quiet depending on his stutter, he was always number two in more ways than just name. But when he had a knife in his hand it was like his confidence went through the roof, he was steady and skilled.

Five had also seen Diego letting Ben try them out. Ben had squared up to the practice dummy and promptly tripped over his own feet and sunk the knife into the dummy’s solar plexus and downwards, tearing a large seam into it.

“Let’s do a little practice,” the Handler suggests. She straightens with a knife in her hand. Five tenses warily as she moves to stand opposite of him. “We’ll start easy,” she says and then lunges.

Five drops into a crouch, ducking under the Handler’s swing, the knife glinting in her hand with an almost reddish hue. His heart pounds in his chest as he scrambles out of her reach. The woman is hardly thrown off though, correcting herself and stalking after him. Five would spend more time being impressed by how her heels and dress don’t slow her at all, were he not busy trying to get away.

Her knife is bigger than the ones Diego used for throwing, and Five has no real way to fight back that doesn’t end with him stabbed, empty handed as he is. The Handler knows it too, her smile is full of teeth, a predator after her prey.

She aims for his right side and Five is forced to the left in an effort to get out of the blade’s way. She controls where he goes like a sheepdog with its herd. Frustration bleeds through Five as he looks for an opening to get past her and back into the center of the room. He’s running out of space, he can tell without looking that she is herding him towards a wall, hoping to corner him.

She doesn’t let up her onslaught and Five feels panic flare low in his gut as he’s forced to retreat further.

He shouldn’t do it.

But when his back finally hits plaster and the Handler steps in close to finish him, he doesn’t think before throwing himself into a jump.

He hasn’t used his powers much since leaving the apocalypse, only using them to travel a few inches to get out of his room. Nothing that would drain him seriously, even if he’s eating again.

Still, when he pops out of the jump he crumples to his knees, catching himself with his hands. The air rushes out of him in a strained gush that he doesn’t focus on, instead trying to push himself up and keep moving. He shouldn’t have jumped, it’s stolen what little energy he had.

He manages to stand up halfway when he hears the heels behind him. Suddenly there’s a hand across his mouth, pulling him back against the Handler. His hands reach up to claw at her iron hold, desperate to separate himself from her. He feels the press of the knife against his throat and squeezes his eyes shut as she drags the cold metal from one side to the other.

“That, is how you ensure the target bleeds out quickly and quietly,” she whispers in his ear, breath hot against his skin, and releases him.

Five stumbles a few steps away, dragging in a breath and reaching a hand up to his throat. It comes away with red chalk.

He stares at the flaky red wide-eyed. “The knife is fake?” he asks, incredulous at the revelation. He’d really thought the Handler was going to slit his throat.

“It’s a training knife,” she answers, holding said knife up. “The edge is dull and the chalk is so you can see if you get cut. Maybe someday we’ll use the real deal, but I’m glad I had the foresight not to.”

Five scowls at that, offended by the estimation of himself. Offended that it ended up being true.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. The effort was valiant, but you clearly need more time,” she admonishes. “Now, what was that last bit?”

Five frowns, unhappy with himself for allowing his weakness to be seen. If he’d known it was a training knife, if he’d just calmed down for a moment and let the fight end when he was cornered then he wouldn’t be faced with the Handler’s calculating eyes. “I ran out of energy,” he admits reluctantly.

The Handler raises an eyebrow questioningly.

“I’m…not back to my usual standard yet,” Five admits, gesturing to himself. Food has done wonders for him, but his clothes still fit loosely, and he finds his energy levels depleting fast, especially with all the exercise he’s being put through.

The Handler hums in understanding. “You should have said so sooner, Five.”

Five looks away. There’s no way he would have told her earlier.

“I could’ve helped.” She speaks with a smile in her voice. “I’ll talk with the doctor, we may need to change your diet. We can look at what you need more of and maybe work on expanding the portion sizes.”

Five’s eyes snap back to her surprised.

The Handler catches it of course. “Oh Five. You don’t have to hide these things from me. Now,” she flips the knife around, offering the handle to Five. “Your turn.”

She shows him then where to cut when he needs to disable, where the quickest bleeds are, and how to block when you’re empty handed. They trade off who gets to wield the knife. The Handler is just as adept at avoiding the blade as she is at using it and Five ends the day with red chalk criss-crossing his uniform.

________

Five flips through the anatomy book the Handler gave him idly. The woman had handed it to him for studying after she had demonstrated knife techniques the day before and then left him alone in her office so she could see to some business.

Without her watchful eyes on him, forcing his focus on whatever she put in front of him, his gaze roved over the room with interest. The Handler rarely left him alone, much less alone in her office.

He’s standing and moving around the desk to sit in the leather chair. The set up reminds Five of Reginald’s. Neatly ordered fountain pens and a stack of case files waiting for the Handler to sign off on them. Five runs a curious finger along the edges, he wants to crack one open, but he has a feeling the Handler would know that he had, shrewd woman that she is.

Five huffs kicking the chair into a spin and watching the room blur, He drops his feet after a full rotation, stopping himself in front of the wall of books behind the desk.

When Five was stranded in the apocalypse reading material was sparse, he’d stumbled upon Vanya’s book by accident. He poured over those pages desperately, soaking in all the information about his siblings like a plant seeking the sun. Frustration, longing, and sadness had swept through him in waves as he read, but Five took what he could get, even if it was stories of his siblings falling apart. Then there had been a day where he had found a magazine while searching for kindling. The only reason it survived his fire was because Allison’s name was on the cover, declaring her divorce and all the gossip around it. Five hadn’t paid those details much attention, too busy trying to reconcile that he was an uncle. Her name was Claire. Five brought the magazine back to his shelter, had stared at it mystified to realize that Allison had a daughter. A daughter Five never got to meet.

Five shakes those bitter thoughts away and skims over the titles of the books in front of him, all of them thick and voluminous. There’s one that catches his attention. He stands up, going onto his toes and snagging it with the tips of his fingers, pulling it to the shelf’s edge until it tips over into his waiting hands. _Foundations of the Theory of Probability_ is written in gold along the cover. Five flips through the pages curiously.

The office door swings open then, startling Five into slamming the book closed and turning to meet the Handler’s gaze. Her eyes take in the abandoned anatomy book, the desk chair that is out of position and Five, caught red-handed. She shuts the door and walks the rest of the way in, pausing to rest her hands on the desk chair and spin it back to its original position.

Five stays still, waiting for her to reprimand him.

“You’re supposed to be studying.” she says, fixing him with a look.

“I have been,” Five replies.

“Really,” she smiles. “That doesn’t look like the book I left you.” She holds out an expectant hand and Five relinquishes the book to her. Her lips purse, eyes running over the title with interest and then looking back to him. “Why this one?”

Five shrugs and answers her truthfully, “It looked interesting and I like math.”

The Handler hums, turning to replace the book. Five takes the opportunity to slink back to his original seat.

When the Handler turns back around, her eyes are calculating. “That rifle you had, when we first met, did you ever shoot it?”

Five curls his lips. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

The Handler comes around the desk and pats his cheek lightly. “Just thinking of some adjustments to your training.”

________

The Handler has the gun range set for long range training. The targets (a large range of dummies, all dressed and styled to look like different and unique people) are spaced out and set further back. There are obstacles in the way of some, all of it to impart some realism for when agents are in the field dealing with real obstructions.

The Handler had walked Five to his station and handed him a list of descriptions. His head had tilted like a confused puppy, though his eyes were clear, obviously asking her for clarification.

“Memorize that,” she ordered and he dutifully turned his eyes back to the page.

She had given him fifteen seconds before taking it back and heading to the observation deck without a word. The boy doesn’t need more than that she figures. And she’s right.

A shot cracks through the air and the Handler watches impressed as one of the dummy’s heads explode in a spray of red blood (all for the sake of realism). She counts twenty seconds before another shot is fired, this one clipping a blonde-haired dummy’s shoulder and is followed in quick succession by another shot that hits the center of the head.

She smiles to herself, leaning against the railing of the observation deck. Number Five has a talent for the gun, she can see it even now. His misses are few and far between and any non-lethal shot is quickly followed by a correction. She gives herself a pat on the back for her thought process. When she caught the boy with one of her mathematics books it’d hit her that he may excel with the rifle, and not only that, but he had one when she collected him from the apocalypse. A few months’ training and she knows he’ll be an expert.

That’s the problem with the Commission now. There are too many blunt instruments when a scalpel is what’s needed, it makes the agent’s that are quick and precise stand out all the more. Watching Five, she knows he’ll be valuable.

Another shot and a dummy falls, a hole straight through the heart.

Heavy footsteps draw the Handler’s attention.

“A nice shot,” comes the pleasant voice.

“And he continues to improve.” The Handler straightens, turning to face her boss. “AJ, this is unexpected,” she lies. She’s been waiting for one of the Directors to show up.

The Shubunkin fish comes to a stop next to her, bubbles leave his mouth as he faces her, tail moving almost lazily. “A woman like you is always expecting the worst,” he replies.

She tips her head, “You flatter me. Though I was hoping this visit wouldn’t be in that category.”

“I’ll get to the point then. The board has grown weary and feel they have given you ample time to put your pet project to the test.” He pulls out a cigarette, lighting up and holding it to an opening to his bowl. Smoky bubbles make their way inside. “Some are claiming that you’ve grown too attached.”

The Handler pulls out her own cigarette when Carmichael offers the lighter to her, taking a slow drag. “My, my, they certainly are impatient.”

His voice is light as he says, “They like to see results on paper, as you know.”

The crack of the rifle in the air. The Handler’s lips curl amused. “I do.”

“So, I can only assume that you have something planned already,” Carmichael guesses.

“You know me too well,” the Handler allows, pulling a file from the bag at her feet.

Carmichael takes it, fins fluttering as he reads the case over. “The Carson case. 1938.” the file is closed and handed back without a word as Carmichael lifts his cigarette for another hit. “Simpler than I expected from you.”

She had entertained the idea of something big to start, but only in passing. The truth is she knows to that it’s the small cases that are harder. Not in moving parts but in the visceral reality of the Commission’s work. The Carson case is perfect for dropping Five fully into his job, pushing him into the deep end early so to speak. “It is, but I think this case would be perfect for getting Number Five’s feet wet.”

“That case has already been assigned by Valli,” Carmichael points out, sounding rather neutral about the fact. “Why request a case she’s already sorted?”

“Number Five is talented,” the Handler says to the sound of another shot ringing out. “He’s full of potential that we’re just tapping into.” She tilts her head, as though conceding a point. “ _But,_ he’s untested. So the simpler the case the better. It’s just unfortunate that I have no cases that particularly match that criteria, hence why I’m looking to outsource.” The Handler spreads her hands. “I respect my fellow handlers’ decisions, AJ. Which is why I’ve waited for this meeting. I won’t be stepping on Valli’s toes if the reassignment comes from higher up.”

Carmichael stares at her and she can’t read him beyond noting the continued lazy movements of his fins. He stubs his cigarette out with a finality. “Very well, Handler. I will give you the reassignment, but I expect the case done as soon as everything is finalized.”

The Handler takes a drag of her still burning cigarette, satisfied. “Understood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, okay this chapter tripped me up and I had some serious blocks for a while. I started overthinking things and then I had a bunch of exams (I still have one this friday D': ) so I was pretty distracted. And then- randomly- the clouds parted and I finished and am fairly satisfied.
> 
> There will be more to the series, but this little snippet is done


End file.
